I searched the forums but couldn't find a real official thread for all the infos about D3 (only the official can not wait thread ). Also they are old non-active thread. Let's start a new one! As of now, I hope you all know the 5 classes
News for today, the follower!

IGN

Quote:

The world of Diablo is a hostile one. You can't seem to take more than ten steps outside of a town without being mobbed by spiny imps, fanged horrors and singed by spheres of hellfire. It's a tough life trying to cut through all these beasts alone, so Blizzard's implementing Followers to help out.

There will be three Followers in Diablo III: the Templar, the Enchantress and the Scoundrel. They essentially take the place of the mercenaries you could hire in Diablo II. Only one Follower can be brought out with you into battle in Diablo III, and each will have different motivations for joining with you, hundreds of lines of dialogue and unique abilities that can be switched around depending on how you want them to play. You won't be able to directly control the Followers, but they'll at least provide some extra buffs and damage as you slaughter untold numbers of fiendish demons.

Blizzard lead content designer Kevin Martens says the Followers will be active participants during your journey, often commenting on quests and environments, conversing with townsfolk and offering up hints. You can bring one Follower with you outside of towns, and each will have access to 12 skills, four of which can be active at a time. Their armor will upgrade over time and change in appearance when it does, and you can slot in rings, amulets and weapons. Each Follower will also get a distinct special item slot that lets then equip gear nobody else, including you, can.

"[The Followers] are not just a sack of somewhat expensive hit points," says Martens. "If you're not actually playing with a friend, you've got the next best thing with these people because they're very active story-wise. Beyond what the mercenaries did [in Diablo II], you can spec [the Followers] to match how you play your class. I think that any three of them can work with any class depending on how you spec them, and they're also free to take with you. There's no cost to taking them. So we do expect and kind of want people to switch them out whenever they feel it's necessary. They might take the Enchantress because she's got useful debuffs when they know they're going to fight a certain boss. Or maybe they'll take the Templar as a Wizard and spec him so he's got more resistances and hit points and a heal ability and turn him into their tank. That I think is a huge advantage. I also hope that people will just take them because they like the personalities as well, whether it's perfect for their build or not."

Even though you won't have direct control, Martens says the artificial intelligence will be smart about combat. Hopefully that holds true. "[The Followers] will do their own thing depending on what their build is. I'm not a huge fan of the pet bar control thing anyway. I think that the AI is actually quite good. They'll choose contextually the right thing to do. The descriptions of the skills make it obvious how their AI works. For example, the Scoundrel and the Templar both have a heal and it tells you right in the description they'll do it automatically as soon as you get low hit points. If you don't want that skill, take a different one. Then pathfinding-wise, they'll keep up with you if you ever manage to get too far ahead of them. If you die, they'll just warp over to you."

But what if the Followers die? "The penalty is very minor," says Martens. "Previously we had them go back to down and the penalty was that you had to go back to get them. We changed that recently to be easier for the player in that they just get stunned. They don't actually die, they just get knocked unconscious and there's a timer on that which I think is currently 15 to 20 seconds. You can revive them if you can get over to them in time, or you just wait until the timer's done and they'll come back to life. You don't have to worry about these people too much."

If your game becomes a multiplayer experience, the Followers will be disabled, which Martens says cuts down on distractions. "We felt that when you're playing with other people the Followers become something you no longer really need. The Followers, with the amount of talking and interaction they do, become actually more of a distraction than a use, in my opinion. You know, you want to talk to your friend, shut up Scoundrel, hold on a second." Followers will also not be available in player versus player modes.

Earlier in the development process Blizzard considered building in parts of the world that could only be accessed by having a specific Follower tag along, but after testing tossed aside the idea. "Everything they do is good for you, and there's never any disadvantage to having one or not having another," says Martens. "Whatever you can find randomly in the world is accessible to anybody with or without a Follower."

So what do you think, do you know which Follower might suit your style? Or are you just waiting to see if you can get into the beta that's supposed to launch this fall?

Do you keep the smaller map present while you move around? It makes it much easier. I love D2 and have sunk many, many hours into it. I can't wait to see what D3 offers.

Yes. I recently started act 3 for the first time and I couldn't get out of of the marsh. I kept going around it and eventually ending up in the same place. I've played other games with maps but they were smaller, less complicated and showed you the direction to go.

I guess it doesn't help that I have a terrible sense of direction and am not good with maps in real life.

Yes. I recently started act 3 for the first time and I couldn't get out of of the marsh. I kept going around it and eventually ending up in the same place. I've played other games with maps but they were smaller, less complicated and showed you the direction to go.

I guess it doesn't help that I have a terrible sense of direction and am not good with maps in real life.

Act 3 is a PITA to get around in the Marsh. If you're not playing a sorc with teleport (or using enigma) be ready to walk alot to get around, lots of deadend.

Are you playing single-player or on b.net? If you're on open b.net I can give you a hand. I still have my toons there

The wait is almost over: Diablo III will finally be released on May 15, Blizzard said Thursday morning.

The anticipated role-playing game has been in development for ages, making frequent appearances on Wired.com’s reader-voted Vaporware Awards features. Fans who just cannot wait any longer to give Blizzard their money can pre-purchase a digital copy of the game right now.

Diablo III will be available in most regions of the world on May 15, localized into 11 languages. The price in the United States is $60. A collector’s edition with bonus items will be sold for $100.

I'm not so interested in it anymore considering so many features have been removed (ie: PvP) and will apparently be DLC and cost extra. For a game that's waaaaaaay past release date that's apparently missing so much they got a lot of nerve to still charge $60.

If anything good comes from this I'm hoping it will spur Guild Wars 2 out the door a little faster.

XBOX Live: WagmmanPSN: WaggBFBC2: WagmanSteam: Wag

My Second Life character looks and acts exactly like me except he can fly.

I'm not so interested in it anymore considering so many features have been removed (ie: PvP) and will apparently be DLC and cost extra. For a game that's waaaaaaay past release date that's apparently missing so much they got a lot of nerve to still charge $60.

If anything good comes from this I'm hoping it will spur Guild Wars 2 out the door a little faster.

I haven't read that PVP will be DLC.

Blizzard takes a long time with their games to get them to their satisfaction and I think that it is a big part of what makes them good.

Yeah, I'm not really sure where this idea came from that the PvP will become DLC?? From what I read, it was just being pulled because it's not ready, and will be brought in with a patch once it is.

It's not really Blizzard's style to withhold something so critical from the game and then try to charge for it. They are one of the few companies that actually maintains their games past release at no extra cost. (And make money off expansions of course).

I really doubt you will be able to run in 1080P maximum with this card. But at least you'll be able to run it

What PSU do you have? Because if it's not powerful enough for power up the last suggestion, your 200$ budget is busted.

If he needs a new psu and gpu, he can get a HD7770 plus an Antec Green 380w for a total of $216 shipped from Newegg. Not that much more than $200. And the HD7770 will blow away the 8500. If he has a standard 300w psu and doesn't want to upgrade his gpu, he can just pick-up a HD7750 for $117 shipped from Newegg. That is still far better than his current gpu. No need to spend big money to play this game with upped graphics.

If he needs a new psu and gpu, he can get a HD7770 plus an Antec Green 380w for a total of $216 shipped from Newegg. Not that much more than $200. And the HD7770 will blow away the 8500. If he has a standard 300w psu and doesn't want to upgrade his gpu, he can just pick-up a HD7750 for $117 shipped from Newegg. That is still far better than his current gpu. No need to spend big money to play this game with upped graphics.

True, I forgot the 7700 serie since I'm not eyeing them (I have a 6770 wanting to upgrade for 7900 for a nice upgrade). I will have to change my PSU (most probably) so I just wanted to warn him. Altho, the 7770 will run the game without a problem.

True, I forgot the 7700 serie since I'm not eyeing them (I have a 6770 wanting to upgrade for 7900 for a nice upgrade). I will have to change my PSU (most probably) so I just wanted to warn him. Altho, the 7770 will run the game without a problem.

If you have a 6770 already, don't bother going up to a 7770. Not enough increase to justify the money, IMO. Wait for a bit and see what the new Nvidia cards bring, and definitely keep your eye on slickdeals type sites for super deals on Nvida 5xx and AMD 68xx series cards.

If you have a 6770 already, don't bother going up to a 7770. Not enough increase to justify the money, IMO. Wait for a bit and see what the new Nvidia cards bring, and definitely keep your eye on slickdeals type sites for super deals on Nvida 5xx and AMD 68xx series cards.

The 7870 is another worthy upgrade, but is too pricey at $350, IMO.

Yeah the 6770 to 7770 would not be an upgrade, just a waste of money. If I upgrade, it's for a bigger, faster card (at least 7950). But that would require a new PSU, a new 1080p monitor to justify switching card (now gaming on a 16something x 1050 so 6770 does well.) and the card... so $$$$$.

to stay on topic, I got a phonecall from Ebgames (I pre-ordered the game there last week to make sure I have an english version) asking me if I wanted the CE instead. The Tyrael's wing might looks cool and the dye, but other than that. not worth the extra 50$ IMO.

If we had in-game screens of the Wings and Dye... I might have bitten the bullet

I'm hoping D3 will have some pretty steep discounts at retail upon release- at least $10 or more, that's why it doesn't make much sense to pre-order.

So, are we expecting D3 to be the biggest selling PC game of all time?

In here, Best Buy offers 10$ Gift Card when you pre-order the game (basically 10$ off but you can't use it on D3).

I think it could be. However, to make sure it is. They should make the beta public next month to have people on the fence buy it (or not!). But if the product is good, they could crack more sales this way.

An active connection is a must for a game like this. If the game was playable offline, then there would be hacking galore. And I don't mean piracy hacking, but like item duping and god knows what else. Keeping the game as an online only game allows Blizzard to make sure all loot / bosses / etc are server controlled.

With the RMAH, you know the hackers are going to be attacking this game harder then ever, and anything Blizzard can do to try to keep on top of that is a plus.

It sucks for the 0.1% of gamers without active internet connections, but hey, it's 2012, maybe it's time you upgraded that 56k modem, no?

An active connection is a must for a game like this. If the game was playable offline, then there would be hacking galore. And I don't mean piracy hacking, but like item duping and god knows what else. Keeping the game as an online only game allows Blizzard to make sure all loot / bosses / etc are server controlled.

With the RMAH, you know the hackers are going to be attacking this game harder then ever, and anything Blizzard can do to try to keep on top of that is a plus.

It sucks for the 0.1% of gamers without active internet connections, but hey, it's 2012, maybe it's time you upgraded that 56k modem, no?

+1, don't really mind this game to require permament internet connection... I'll always play online anyways. I can't understand why a single-player only offline game would require one tho... To prevent the griefing of hackers/dupers, it's better to be always connected and have alot of things server side. It will just sucks if you can't play offline single-player when the servers are down or updating...

I started D2 offline single-player and then jumped online once I cleared the story alone. But for D3, I'm jumping online with friends right off and never playing alone offline (even if it was possible).

Yeah the 6770 to 7770 would not be an upgrade, just a waste of money. If I upgrade, it's for a bigger, faster card (at least 7950). But that would require a new PSU, a new 1080p monitor to justify switching card (now gaming on a 16something x 1050 so 6770 does well.) and the card... so $$$$$.

to stay on topic, I got a phonecall from Ebgames (I pre-ordered the game there last week to make sure I have an english version) asking me if I wanted the CE instead. The Tyrael's wing might looks cool and the dye, but other than that. not worth the extra 50$ IMO.

If we had in-game screens of the Wings and Dye... I might have bitten the bullet

Thanks for the advice everyone! I think my PSU may need to be upgraded for the higher end cards so I may stick with the 6670 with it's price-point. Still have a couple of months to decide, so I'll wait and see if anything goes on sale by then.